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Show 1871.] THE SECRETARY ON ADDITIONS TO THE MENAGERIE. '37 tunity of calling the attention of the Meeting to the register of accessions to the Menagerie now lying on the table. In it will be found the English and scientific name, sex, and locality, so far as these are ascertainable, of every vertebrated animal received alive by the Society, together with information as to how it was obtained, whether by presentation, purchase, or otherwise. A corresponding register is kept of all the deaths that occur in the Society's Gardens, and of the mode in which the bodies are disposed of. This lies also on the table. Both these registers, which are kept at the Superintendent's office in the Gardens, are, I need hardly say, at all times open to the inspection of the Fellows of the Society, or of any other person interested in them. Moreover, in order to give greater publicity to the list of arrivals, a copy of them is published every week in the ' Field' newspaper. From the earliest days of the Society's existence it has been the practice to keep a register of "arrivals and departures" in the daily journal of " occurrences," as it is termed, prepared by the Superintendent. Ever since the day when I had the honour of becoming Secretary of the Society, the register of accessions has always been carefully revised every month and an abstract of it printed in the 'Proceedings.' This was at first done month by month*; but it was thought afterwards to be more convenient to give the list of additions for the year continuously, so that since 1862 it has been printed entire as an "Appendix" to the yearly volume of 'Proceedings.' At the same time it has been my constant practice (as those here, who have so often had to listen to me, must be fully aware) to bring before the scientific meetings such notices as seemed to be requisite of all the more remarkable additions to the Society's collection, so as to call immediate attention to every accession of special interest. I have likewise edited and published four editions of the list of Vertebrated Animals in the Society's Gardens, and am now engaged in preparing a fifth edition, which will contain a register of every accession received up to the close of last year, and thus form a complete record of all the animals that have been living in the Society's Gardens during the past ten years. I have been induced to trouble the meeting with these remarks, because in the last number of the 'Annals of Natural History'f a Fellow of the Society has assured the public that no proper record is kept of the living animals received in the Society's Gardens. How such a statement can have been made in the face of the facts above stated, I am not able to explain. Mr. Howard Saunders exhibited a series of skins of birds of the genus Aquila, and made the following remarks on them :- "Before commencing the exhibition of this formidable array of * See P. Z. S. 1859, p. 212, where the first of these lists (for May of that year) is given. t Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 3, vol. vii. p. 15. |